VALIS

Staff Pick

How would you react to having a pink laser beam information directly into your brain and having the experience of simultaneously living in the present and the time of the Christian apostles? A writer of science fiction, Philip K. Dick used it as fodder for his last trilogy of books before his death. VALIS is the first of those, and probably the most autobiographical. The reader is left constantly wondering what is real, and whether or not the narrator is insane. I don't want to spoil any of the schizophrenic fun  just read the book and try to figure it out for yourself. Recommended by Orin, Powells.com

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

VALIS is the first book in Philip K. Dick's incomparable final trio of novels (the others being are The Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer). This disorienting and bleakly funny work is about a schizophrenic hero named Horselover Fat; the hidden mysteries of Gnostic Christianity; and reality as revealed through a pink laser. VALIS is a theological detective story, in which God is both a missing person and the perpetrator of the ultimate crime.*

Review:

"The fact that what Dick is entertaining us about is reality and madness, time and death, sin and salvation — this has escaped most critics. Nobody notices that we have our own homegrown Borges, and have had him for thirty years." Ursula K. Le Guin, New Republic*

Synopsis:

Valis is the first book in Philip K. Dick's incomparable final trio of novels (the others being are The Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer). This disorienting and bleakly funny work is about a schizophrenic hero named Horselover Fat; the hidden mysteries of Gnostic Christianity; and reality as revealed through a pink laser. Valis is a theological detective story, in which God is both a missing person and the perpetrator of the ultimate crime.

"The fact that what Dick is entertaining us about is reality and madness, time and death, sin and salvation--this has escaped most critics. Nobody notices that we have our own homegrown Borges, and have had him for thirty years."--Ursula K. Le Guin, New Republic

What Our Readers Are Saying

Average customer rating based on 2 comments:

mntrainboy, October 23, 2014 (view all comments by mntrainboy)
Dick's postmodern masterpiece contains the culmination of all his previous themes: death, entropy, oppressive government, the nature of reality, and the nature of the hidden intelligence behind that reality. Drawn largely from his own experiences following a supposed "encounter with the divine", VALIS is at once Dick's most baroque and inaccessible novel and his most deeply emotional and personal work. While UBIK, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Man in the High Castle and A Scanner Darkly are all more likely candidates for general recognition as Dick's magnum opus, VALIS is undoubtedly the novel he put the most into, and for my money his best.

How would you react to having a pink laser beam information directly into your brain and having the experience of simultaneously living in the present and the time of the Christian apostles? A writer of science fiction, Philip K. Dick used it as fodder for his last trilogy of books before his death. VALIS is the first of those, and probably the most autobiographical. The reader is left constantly wondering what is real, and whether or not the narrator is insane. I don't want to spoil any of the schizophrenic fun  just read the book and try to figure it out for yourself.

by Orin

"Review"
by ,
"The fact that what Dick is entertaining us about is reality and madness, time and death, sin and salvation — this has escaped most critics. Nobody notices that we have our own homegrown Borges, and have had him for thirty years." Ursula K. Le Guin, New Republic*

"Synopsis"
by Random House,
Valis is the first book in Philip K. Dick's incomparable final trio of novels (the others being are The Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer). This disorienting and bleakly funny work is about a schizophrenic hero named Horselover Fat; the hidden mysteries of Gnostic Christianity; and reality as revealed through a pink laser. Valis is a theological detective story, in which God is both a missing person and the perpetrator of the ultimate crime.

"The fact that what Dick is entertaining us about is reality and madness, time and death, sin and salvation--this has escaped most critics. Nobody notices that we have our own homegrown Borges, and have had him for thirty years."--Ursula K. Le Guin, New Republic

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